Book Comment: Judaism for Everyone and Why the Jews Rejected Jesus

Two books this time: Judaism for Everyone (2002) and Why the Jews Rejected Jesus (2005). These two books are two sides of the same coin and discuss some of the same issues.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the author of eleven books with titles like Kosher Sex, The Rabbi and the Psychic, and The Jewish Guide to Adultery, wrote Judaism for Everyone as an apologetic work  (but, he emphatically points out, not as an evangelistic effort). The secondary title of the book is Renewing Your Life Through the Vibrant Lessons of the Jewish Faith.

David Klinghoffer says that he wrote Why the Jews Rejected Jesus as an explanation to his well-meaning Christian friends who cannot understand why he would reject the free gift of salvation offered by the Gospel.

For both authors the idea reduces down to one point: they do not believe that Jesus fulfilled the requirements for being declared the Messiah. Christians, of course, see the same things, but come to an entirely different interpretation *.

The Jews list these reasons for rejecting Jesus:

1.     Jesus never fought the Romans. * Chrisians say that Rome clearly saw Jesus as a threat.

2.     Jesus did not establish a physical political messianic kingdom.  * Christians say that Jesus established His kingdom in the hearts of His followers, an idea which Jews utterly reject.

3.     A new Temple was not built in Jerusalem.  * Christians say that Jesus Himself is the new Temple and its priest.

4.     The world did not recognize God as Lord.  * Christians say that at the Second Coming every head will bow and every knee will bend in acknowledgement of God.

5.      A New Covenant based on restored commitment to observance of the Law was not given to the Jews. * Christians say that the New Covenant based on Faith in the Saving Grace of Jesus is the fulfillment of the Law.

6.     There was no ingathering of the Jewish exiles.  * Some Christians see the fulfillment of this requirement in the establishment of the modern State of Israel.

The Jews saw the claims of Jesus and His Christian followers to be blasphemous.  Klinghoffer points out that to the Jews, blasphemy is abusing God’s name for a forbidden purpose. Boteach clarifies what the Jews see as that forbidden purpose: He declares that the idea that God can be Human is the ultimate heresy. *Christians, of course, insist that Jesus was fully divine and fully human.

I urge you to read both of these books. Christianity and Judaism have major differences between them.  A Christian, for example, cannot echo Rabbi Boteach in saying, “Doing the right thing for the wrong reasons is far more important than waiting for the right motivation.”

Even with the differences, there is agreement on the vast majority of our two worldviews and an understanding of Jewish history, symbolism, and theology is absolutely essential for a proper understanding of Christianity. Jesus was an orthodox Jew.

Also, since God does not change, all of His promises to Israel still stand. He is not finished with the Jews.  The Bible tells us that in the end days “all Israel shall be saved.”

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

A Bent and Deformed Tree

In one of the numerous cities strung along the Alabama Gulf Coast, trees line the main highway.  This is a very intentional touch which reduces the "strip-mall" feel of the single story restaurants and stores which line the highway behind the trees.  The trees stand up straight, all the same type, all the same height.  This makes startling the one tree which grows straight out of an incline, parallel to the ground,  and then turns upward.  Someone failed to tend to this tree and it seems to have eventually turned upward of its own accord.  It now points in the desired direction, but it is gnarled and deformed.

Realize that our children are like these trees.  Raised and trained properly they will often stay within the faith.  Left to their own devices, they may stray.  Some will eventually return to the faith but only after receiving numerous scars and deformities.  They need loving gardeners.

 “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6

Children learn values by watching their parents. There is a phrase, "Show, don't tell." Explain rules, do not just impose them. One thing which I taught my son and my grandchildren: "Don't be afraid, just be smart." Love unconditionally and predictably.  Do not "smother" your children's individuality. Your children do not need or want to be little clones of you.

This is ancient knowledge known by the Jews long before there were any Christians.  Christians often fail to remember our Jewish origins. In its strictest sense, “Torah” means the first five books of the Bible.  The word “Torah” תּוֹרָה

translates as “teaching,  or “instruction.” Read this web page written by the Chabad-Lubavitcher Rabbi Eliezer Shemtov of Montevideo, Uruguay.  Though I would interpret this in a Christian context, I agree with every word spoken here by the rabbi.

Messianic Prophecies from the Bible: The Virgin Birth

"Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." Isaiah 7:14, KJV

"almah" עַלְמָ֗ה  is a Hebrew word for “young woman" or "virgin.”  There is much controversy over the translation of this word as “virgin.” Hebrew scholar Michael L. Brown has pointed out that a young maiden in Isaiah’s time was expected to be a virgin.  Another Hebrew word, “betulah” בְּתוּלָ֕ה  (used in Genesis 24:16) more properly means “virgin” but can also mean “young woman” or “maiden.”

Many Jews point out that the context of the verse seems to show this as being a sign given to Ahaz, King of Judah, who lived centuries before Jesus. (Ahaz was a descendent of the line of David, as was Jesus). They also say the prophecy cannot refer to Jesus because He was not named Immanuel.

Professor Brown answers that Ahaz was addressed in two verses in the plural. (The divine right of kings or were two persons being addressed?).  Brown sees this as “a promise to the house of David as a whole” and says that “the birth of Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz seems to take the place of the Immanuel prophecy in terms of the immediate historical context.”

The “virgin” translation was used in the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures which was in use during New Testament times.  The Greek word used here is “parthenos” ( “παρθένος” ; “virgin”).  The Septuagint was translated hundreds of years before Jesus was born and was quoted by Matthew. 

That not all Jews object to the translation of “almah” as “virgin” is shown by a quotation from the respected rabbi Rashi: :”And some interpret that this is the sign, that she was a young girl and incapable of giving birth.”  Rashi (Rabbi Shlomo Yitschaki, 1040-1105) did not himself believe that Isaiah predicted a virgin birth.

(A Jewish rabbi discusses this question here.)

http://www.outreachjudaism.org/uploads/pdf%5CDUALVIRgin%20website.pdf

(A Christian response.)

http://www.aboutbibleprophecy.com/isaiah-7-14-ahaz-sign.htm

It is true that Jesus was not literally named Immanuel (Eμμανουηλ), which in Greek means “God with us,” but this is exactly what Christians believe about Jesus.

“Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.” Matthew 1:23, KJV

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The Virgin Birth narratives occur in Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 1:26-38.   Michael L. Brown is quoted from The Case for the Real Jesus (2007) by Lee Strobel.

Dog is Good

Modern culture seems to have absolutely lost the understanding that words and concepts have meaning.  I believe that this is a result of the relativism which is rapidly becoming the prevalent world view.

I recently saw a bumper sticker on a car.  The bumper sticker had a cartoon of a dog wearing a halo and the caption “Dog is Good.”  While I definitely agree with the sentiment, something about this bothered me greatly.

The halo is an almost universally recognized symbol for sainthood.  The phrase “Dog is Good” is an English language play (*) on the words “God is Good.”  The sainthood reference made me itchy.  The “good” reference concerned me greatly.  While I am absolutely convinced that there is no intent here to do so, the “good” reference could be viewed as sacrilegious.  This is a word that people, in their obsession to not offend anyone, shy away from now, but it is still pertinent.  People in the modern Church seem to have lost their understanding of the Holiness of God.

Jesus responded very quickly when He was called “good” by a loving follower.

“And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life? And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.”  Mark 10:17-18

“Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:16 (This references Leviticus 11:44)

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(*) :  For non-English speaking readers of this blog:  In English, the words G_O_D and D_O_G contain the same letters and at a quick glance, can appear to be the same word.

Book Comment: Who's Who in the Age of Jesus

The 2005 book, Who’s Who in the Age of Jesus, by professor Geza Vermes, is an extremely interesting book for those who love history, biography, and the Bible.  Dr. Vermes intended the book to emphasize the unassailable historicity and the intense Jewishness of Jesus. 

Many of the people Dr. Vermes discusses are persons you have never heard of before.  He talks, of course, about the Roman emperors, governors, procurators, and legates and the Jewish High priests, but also about important women such a Mariamne and Drusilla,  rabbis such as Yohanan ben Zakkai and Simeon ben Shetah, Jewish mystics such as Simon the Essene and Honi the Circle-Drawer, Jewish revolutionaries such as Simon bar Giora and Judas son of Sapphoreus, writers such as Josephus and Justus of Tiberias,  and important persons.

The book also contains genealogical charts and a chronological table.

Dr. Vermes was born in 1924 in Hungary into a Jewish family, some of whom (including his parents) died during the Holocaust.  The family became converts to Roman Catholicicsm and young Geza went on to become a Roman catholic priest.  Vermes is essentially a scholar and academic and became a specialist in Hebrew, Aramaic, Christian and Jewish history, the Dead Sea Scrolls, and the life of Jesus. 

 Dr. Vermes questions some of the traditional Christian understandings of Jesus.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2008/mar/18/academicexperts.highereducationprofile

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A general caution: books may give you wonderful new insights and explanations of subjects, but you should never base your Christian beliefs on any one book or the teachings of one person, no matter who they are. All teachings must be consistent with scripture. Read as the Bereans did, with discernment. “… for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” Acts 17:11 NASB

Any doctrines must be consistent with the historical full body of Christian thought. Doctrines or teachings inconsistent with scripture in any way must be rejected. You would not eat cheese which had a fuzzy fungus growing on it.

Film Comment: The Next One

Adrienne Barbeau portrays a widow who, along with her son, rescues a man named Glenn (Kier Dullea) who washes up on a beach in Greece.  The man does not remember who he is but seems to have extraordinary mystical powers.  He slowly begins to remember his identity.

Glenn is a time travelling alien from a future when everyone is a clone.  In Glenn’s time, everyone is equal and all are perfect, there is no sin or evil.  Glenn’s brother arrived on Earth two thousand years before!  In the original version of this 1984 film, the final reveal comes when Glenn recognizes his brother, Jesus, hanging on the cross in a church’s stained glass window.

Down through the centuries, people have tried repeatedly to make Jesus into someone, anyone, other than who He was.  To some he was an ethical genius, or a prophet, a deranged man, a man possessed by the Cosmic Christ Spirit, a fraud, the leader of a homosexual group, a revolutionary, a rabbi, an Ascended Master, or even a total fiction who never existed.

Adrienne Barbeau has said that the only reason she appeared in The Next One (1984) was to get a free trip to Greece. 

The Extent of God's Love

“If I could only love the most righteous person in the world as much as the Creator loves the most wicked person in the world.”  Rabbi Zusha of Hanipol

Meshulam Zusha (1718-1800) was born in Galicia and would, in modern terms, have been of the Polish nationality.  He was known for his extreme piety and his highly emotional prayer life.   He is considered to have been one of the great Hassidic rabbis along with his equally revered brother, Rabbi Elimelech of Lizhensk.

Many people understand that Jesus died for the sins of the world.  What they often fail to realize is that Jesus died for them individually.  The Bible says that the angels rejoice when one sinner believes.   The price paid for that one sinner was the most valuable thing in the universe. 

This is why some people are fascinated by the Bible Codes.

GENESIS 1: 22-26

The Hebrew text above is one example of why many people believe in the phenomenon of the Bible Codes.  I must admit that I tend to be a skeptic about things like this, but you can see why this would intrigue people.

Rabbi Chaim Michael Dov Weissmandl (1903-1957), the driving force behind the Bible Codes movement, found the following in Genesis 1:22-26; the name of Abraham is spelled out (from the top line down, enclosed in the added boxes) by the letters in the passage with each letter of the name separated from the preceding letter by forty-nine (seven times seven; seven was a sacred number, Genesis 2:2, 4:24, 21:28)) intercalary letters.  In each of the forty-nine letter sequences, אֱלֹהִים (elohim/God, backlit in gray) appears.

 In the midrash Bereshit Rabbah (68, 11f), Rabbi Nehemiah said, "The Holy One, blessed be He, united His name with Abraham; with Isaac too he united His name."  

One of the names of God is "Yahweh" (in biblical Hebrew this is represented as HWHY, read from right to left).  Remember that the ancients believed that names and even the letters of which the names were composed carried meaning and power.

When God confirmed His covenant to Abram by declaring that Sarai's son would be the long-promised heir, He inserted himself (the "H") into their names, giving them new and suddenly different lives.  Abram became Abraham; Sarai became Sarah.  Isaac means "he laughed" which is what elderly Abram did when God told him that he and and his very old wife were going to finally have a son. 

The text (Genesis 1: 22-26) into which this insertion of the name of Abraham occurs says nothing about Abram.  He wouldn't be born until centuries later.

"And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. And the evening and the morning were the fifth day.  And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.  And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.  And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

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There are often odd spacings and other abnormalities in the text when Hebrew and other Semitic languages like Arabic are inserted into a text.  Microsoft Word insists on reversing the letter order to conform to English usage (unintended ATBASH?)  Word processors need special software to properly handle these alphabets; without the software you have to try to trick Microsoft Word which doesn't always work.

Book Comment: Cracking the Bible Code

"All that was, is, and will be unto the end of time is included in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible."  So said the Lithuanian (though born in Belarus) Talmudic scholar Rabbi Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman (1720 - 1797).  He was a mathematician and bible commentator who memorized the Talmud.  


When the rabbi was challenged, "Where is the Rambam?" (The 12th Century Rabbi Moses ben Maimonides), he instantly responded, "Rabot (may be multiplied) Moftai (my wonders) B'eretz (in the land of) Mitzraim (Egypt)."  This is Exodus 11:9.


Rabbi Moshe Cordevaro (1522-1570) had earlier said, "The secrets of our holy Torah are revealed through knowledge of combinations, numerology (gematria), switching letters, first-and-last letters, shapes of letters, first- and last- verses, skipping of letters (dilug otiot) and letter combinations."


Both men were echoing an ancient Jewish tradition that the Torah was dictated by God to Moses letter by letter and that it contained coded or encrypted information about the past, present, and future.*  This is the subject discussed by Jeffrey Satinover in Cracking the Bible Code (1997).  For example, Satinover points out that AHRN (Aaron) occurs twenty-five times in the Hebrew text at equidistant spaces in Leviticus 1:1-13, a passage in which Aaron is not mentioned.


The claim of hidden messages in the scriptures is at the heart of Kabballah, Jewish mysticism.  There are currently many teams of researchers using computers to search for names, sentences, predictions, etc.  Many claim to have found mentions of historical and modern persons and events.  Most are using the Old Testament Hebrew text; a few are attempting to use the same techniques on the Greek text of the New Testament.


Who knows?  It seems unlikely, but who would dare to insist it is not true?  Is it a situation like what is said in the film, The Number 21, "You're finding it because you're looking for it."?  It does seem dangerous, though, to base one's faith in the Bible on Bible Codes, religious relics, the Shroud of Turin, or other such things when we have the Bible itself and the witness of the Apostles.  The Bible Codes might be equivalent to seeing Jesus' face in a plate of spaghetti.    


















* Many modern theologians, including many Jewish scholars, believe that someone, possibly Moses, assembled the Torah from earlier, far more ancient, sources.